New Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan Tribute Album Unites Legendary Artists
Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen and more feature on a newly curated compilation, 'Where The Willow And The Dogwood Grow', in tribute to Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. Find all the details below.
The record is the latest instalment of Ace Records' long-running series of multi-artist compilations celebrating the great American songwriters of the modern era.
It follows previous editions showcasing the work of Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Randy Newman, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Leonard Cohen, Lee Hazlewood, Brian Wilson and Laura Nyro.
Hundreds of artists have recorded songs from Waits and his wife Brennan's catalogue - 19 of which comprise this new hand-picked collection, including many chosen by the songwriters themselves.
'Where The Willow And The Dogwood Grow' is due for release on Friday May 29 via Ace. Pre-order here.
The forthcoming LP opens with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's 1981 live recording of 'Jersey Girl' - Waits' ode to Brennan from his 1980 album, 'Heartattack And Vine'.
Elsewhere on the tracklist is Cash's take on 'Down There By The Train' from his 1994 full-length effort, 'American Recordings'. Folk legend Joan Baez's version of Waits and Brennan's anti-war track 'Day After Tomorrow' - from Waits' 2004 album 'Real Gone' - closes the new compilation.
As well as "steering the ship", Brennan became Waits' songwriting partner. The couple's first-released joint composition, 'Hang Down Your Head' from 1985's 'Rain Dogs', appears on the new tracklist as "a raunchy rendition" courtesy of country-blues icon Lucinda Williams.
Various other names from the worlds of jazz, blues, gospel, soul and rock have put their own spins on Waits' material. These include Marianne Faithfull (on 'Strange Weather'), Ramones ('I Don't Want To Grow Up'), Willie Nelson ('Picture In A Frame'), Alison Krauss and Robert Plant ('Trampled Rose'), and Norah Jones ('The Long Way Home').
'Where The Willow And The Dogwood Grow' was put together with the blessing, approval and involvement of Waits and Brennan. It is described as an "essential collection for any fan of this remarkable artist's unique work".
An official listing reads: "Few artists have remapped the terrain of popular music, and culture at large, like Tom Waits. Over the course of five decades, he has forged a singular aesthetic that defies genre and turns the marginal into myth. His work is neither fully inside nor outside the mainstream tradition but moves restlessly between them, drawing from vaudeville, blues, jazz, folk, theatre - and just about anything else that catches his ear - to craft something wholly his own.
"His influence reverberates not just through the underground and avant-garde, but across theatre, film, literature, and visual art. With his long-time creative partner and wife Kathleen Brennan, he has dismantled and reassembled the idea of song itself, crafting works that exist as both raw expression and high art.
"This collection honours not only the extraordinary versatility of Waits and Brennan's songwriting, but the importance of an artist who continues to haunt and inspire from the edges inward."
